In 1819 the Hungarian linguist Alexander Csoma de Koros set off for Turkestan, in search of the origins of the Magyar people. He was continuously thwarted in his quest - a misunderstood innocent who became unwittingly entangled in the games of imperial intrigue and espionage that were rife in Central Asia at the time.

Today, as Edward Fox deftly illustrates, we have Csoms de Koros to thank for much of what we know about Tibetan culture. Fate eventually brought him to the Himalayas, where, in the freezing cells of Buddhist monasteries, he uncovered a vast ancient civilisation hitherto unknown to the West. His was a sublimely strange life, a heroic example of scholarly masochism.